


cognitive metafiction

by nickofhearts



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Animal Transformation, Cat/Human Hybrids, Dubious Consent, Heart-Eating, Implied Serial Killing, Insidious Protagonist, Literal Red-handedness, M/M, Protagonist: Lucis Caelum, Sociopathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 23:14:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10684890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickofhearts/pseuds/nickofhearts
Summary: Various Lucis/Morgana scenarios wherein Morgana turns into a human, or Lucis...turns into a cat.





	1. Phase I: Mind over Matter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamingcicadas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamingcicadas/gifts).



> For the sweetest muffin, whose protagonist is named Lucis Caelum.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgana talks about being human so much, Lucis starts dreaming of it.

Lucis knows he's dreaming in the same way the Metaverse doesn't feel quite like reality—things just slightly off so details are blurred when he looks too closely, other parts so sharply realistic as to be utterly impossible. He's in his 'Joker' costume, sleek long coat and red gloves, mask cool against his face.

"Morgana?" he asks the boy that's peering curiously at himself, turning this way and that to examine each of his limbs.

"Who else would I be, idiot?" Morgana retorts, hands on his hips with the same kind of haughty expression that he makes as a cat.

Lucis presses a hand to his mouth to hold in the laughter.

"What! Does it look wrong—?" Morgana's voice suddenly tremulous with anxiousness.

Lucis shakes his head, tapping his chin with two fingers as he passes judgement. "No, you're a very cute human."

Morgana huffs. " _Your_ opinion is irrelevant."

"Hmm," Lucis says, taking a step forward. He props Morgana's face up with two fingers under his chin this time. "I think...I'd like to steal _your_ heart."

"What?!?" Morgana sputters, backing up quickly, but not before Lucis has gotten a grip of his scarf and yanked him forward, into a kiss that isn't so much a kiss as it's a messy gnashing of teeth and Morgana raking fingers that had been claws down over his arms.

Lucis laughs when he pulls away, not bothering to hide it this time, taking in the shocked expression on Morgana's _human_ face.

"Mission _success,_ " he declares, before the dream fades away to reality.

-

"What did you mean yesterday!?" Morgana demands as soon as Lucis wakes up— _falls asleep?_ —appearing back in the dream-that-isn't where Morgana wears a human form, but has cute little kitten ears and a tail that swishes angrily behind him.

"Hmm?"

"About—you know!" grumbling when Lucis maintains his placid expression—" _stealing my heart._ "

Lucis grins, unrepentant. "I meant what I said."

"Argh!" Morgana yells, throwing his hands up in frustration. 

"It's a _human_ thing," Lucis answers, shrugging. "You know, I'm sure, since you're human and all now."

Morgana gives him a suspicious look. "Of course I do!"

"Right, then. Nothing to explain," Lucis agrees.

Morgana's teeth gnash audibly. " _Right._ "

"Then, you won't complain if I try this again?" though Lucis doesn't wait for an answer before leaning in and brushing his lips softly against Morgana's, applying steadily more pressure when Morgana doesn't resist it this time, still and waiting as if understanding is certain to dawn on him.

"I _don't_ —understand," Morgana admits grudgingly when Lucis pulls away.

Lucis smiles at him mysteriously. "Tomorrow night, then."

" _Fine!_ " he hears, the dream slipping through his fingers like sand sifted through an hourglass.

-

Morgana attacks him immediately upon Lucis entering the dream, hands gripping roughly on Lucis' shoulders to yank him down to a height as he presses their mouths together. Lucis laughs into it, parting his lips to touch his tongue gently to Morgana's lips, smiling when that makes Morgana hiss and back off with a glare.

"There!" Morgana growls, arms crossed in a defensive posture. "I stole _your_ heart."

Lucis shakes his head. "There's more to it than that."

" _What_ more?"

"Hmm," Lucis wonders. "Are you old enough for this?"

Morgana's expression darkens further, prelude to an angry snit if Morgana were still a cat, but oddly adorable on his human face. " _Of course I am!_ "

"Alright," Lucis concurs. "Take off your shirt."

"What?!"

Lucis lays his own jacket on the ground, sitting comfortably down on it. The gloves come off next, laid by his side. He's working on the buttons of his shirt while Morgana stares, transfixed and blushing cutely. "Oh, well. Maybe you aren't ready for this after all."

"N-no!" Morgana argues, sitting down abruptly next to Lucis on his jacket. "I'm ready!"

"Then—?" Lucis motions at Morgana's own clothing, all orderly and tucked neatly into place still.

"Right," Morgana says, expression turning determined. He tugs his scarf off first, setting it with Lucis' gloves. The shirt is pulled over his head, revealing a lithe body, nicely muscled as if all the running around he did as a cat has been carried over into the human form.

Lucis spares a moment for frank admiration, though that gets the next item of clothing thrown directly into his face.

"Stop staring!"

"Alright, alright," he agrees. "C'mere," tugging Morgana into his lap. He presses a slow kiss to Morgana's lips, tracing fingers over the bared skin of his chest to make Morgana shiver, and Morgana follows him back when he pulls away this time.

"Was that—a kiss?"

"Yes," Lucis agrees. "A very _good_ one."

The dream slides away slowly as they kiss again, and it's not strange at all to wake up to cat Morgana's whiskers tickling on his face, his small kitten body warm where it's curled up on Lucis' chest. "We'll save the rest for tonight, okay?"

"Alright," Morgana responds, tail flicking, but not before he nuzzles a wet nose against Lucis' mouth, stealing the last kiss.


	2. Phase II: Form over Function

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Nekomata casts an unexpected curse on Lucis.

One moment Lucis was preparing to call out a persona, and the next, the world had suddenly tilted on its axis and he was much closer to the ground than he ever remembered being. "Meow," he said.

"Oh my _god!"_ Ann squealed. "You're so cute!" 

She picked him up, turning him this way and that to examine him. "You've got a little mask like Joker!" 

"This is temporary, right?!" Ryuji yelled, obviously freaking out.

"I have...no idea," Morgana answered him, looking clearly distressed by this turn of events and his inability to give them any context.

They made their way through the next several rooms, and Lucis did not miraculously turn back into a human. He licked at a paw, humming thoughtfully. "Maybe this is what happened to you," he offered Morgana.

Morgana cringed. Violently. "Don't even joke about that!" 

-

They decided to call it a night after plowing through another half-dozen rooms. Everyone was feeling dejected that Lucis wasn't showing any signs of returning to a human form, and they decided unanimously that heading out of the Metaverse was the best course of action. Lucis would _have_ to revert when they landed back in the real world, right?

"He's still a cat!" Ryuji pointed at Lucis accusingly as soon as they stumbled onto the streets of Shibuya.

"The distortions of this Palace turned him into a cat, so perhaps if we defeat the ruler of it and remove the source of the distortions...?" Yusuke looked more and more unsure as he went on.

"Awww, but what are we going to do about this until then?" Ann hugged Lucis to her chest, and Lucis didn't realize what the softness at his back was until he was met with Morgana glaring daggers, almost hissing out his next words.

"We go _home._ Sojiro loves cats, and he'll get to name this one."

"Won't he be worried about Lucis though?" Ann asked, playing with Lucis' paws, which were a bright orange colour instead of the red of his Metaverse gloves. His feline body was an oddly colourful calico, in contrast to the nondescriptness of his usual outfit.

"Send him a message?" Ryuji suggested. "We were uh...studying, and it got too late?"

Ann rolled her eyes at him. "Like anyone'd believe _that._ "

"Perhaps if we said he was helping me with a matter of some delicacy?" Yusuke put forth. "Sakura-san appeared sympathetic to my situation when we last spoke, I'm sure he wouldn't think it was anything untoward."

"Alright! Let's do that!" Ann agreed, snatching Lucis' phone from Ryuji, who'd picked it up off the ground after his sudden transformation.

She quickly typed out a message and showed it to the others.

There were murmurs of assent, and Ann sent the message off. It was only a few seconds later that a confirmation came from Sojiro along with the admonishment not to do anything that would threaten his probation. 

Lucis rolled his eyes. There wasn't much trouble he could get into as a _cat._

"Wait," Ryuji said, as everyone was about to go their separate ways. "How're they getting home?"

-

Ryuji ended up taking the both of them back to Café Leblanc, complaining the whole way. "Why's it gotta be me? Takamaki's closer, and she thinks you're _cute,_ " he muttered at Lucis, giving his head a careless pat that rubbed the fur the wrong way.

Lucis hissed. "We're fine now, Ryuji. You can go home."

He hopped out of the bag, back arched in irritation from the rough treatment. 

"Yeah, yeah." Ryuji waved a hand over his shoulder as he headed back towards the station. "See you tomorrow, if you're not still a cat!"

"I hope I _am_ still a cat, to spite you," Lucis muttered under his breath.

-

Lucis followed Morgana up the stairs, marveling at how clear everything was even in the darkness. The whole thing was _weird,_ but kind of cool. He hopped into his bed, nosing the blanket aside and then dragging it back over himself with his teeth.

"You seem surprisingly okay with this," Morgana said tentatively, watching him.

"Hmm?" Lucis tilted his head thoughtfully. "I guess? It's not like there's anything I can do about it right now, and it's still kind of fun. Maybe tomorrow I'll be freaking out."

Morgana laughed, leaping gracefully onto the bed and curling up next to him. "I doubt it. Nothing fazes you."


	3. Phase III: Heart and Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Lucis has always been a serial killer.

"What are you looking at, Morgana?" Lucis asks. 

His hands are red, but they've always been red—it seems the Metaverse knows truths about him that no living person can tell.

Morgana's big blue eyes are wide with shock. "You— _you!_ "

Lucis smiles, though the expression fits on him differently here too. It's hard to feign shy awkwardness in the Metaverse, where he is _so_ powerful, where there are no limits to what he may do. 

"Did you want a bite?" Lucis asks, holding out the still-beating heart. His eyes go half-lidded, coquettish. "Perhaps consuming human desires will make _you_ human, Mona."

Morgana looks torn, and Lucis tugs on that string a little harder.

"It doesn't _kill_ them, you know," he says to Morgana, if morality is the question here. "It doesn't even send them comatose." He points at his head. "That's all up here." He takes another bite of the still-warm heart, sighs pleasantly as the next piece slides down his throat. "Heart is feeling. Every little worry, every little fear. I'm _helping_ them," Lucis explains, and holds the heart out again.

"It doesn't...hurt them?" Morgana asks, taking hesitant steps forward.

" _No,_ " Lucis says, and it's not even a lie. Without a heart, they no longer _feel._

Morgana's soft little paws nudge at his hand, and Morgana leans in to take the smallest bite, gulping down the piece as if the faster he gets it over with, the less he has to think about it, but that's enough.

Lucis _has_ him, and they both know it.

-

Morgana gasps in shock at his form the next time they enter the Metaverse. "I'm—human?"

"Not quite," Lucis answers with a smirk. He flicks at a cat ear sticking out of Morgana's human head and Morgana twitches, hissing.

There's also still a tail, waving sinuously behind him, and Lucis has an absent thought.

"Say, Mona," he offers, cajoling. "Perhaps if we indulged in some _other_ human desires, it'll speed along your recovery."

"Hmm?" Morgana asks. He's still marveling at his long fingers and the soft skin— _not fur_ —of his face.

"You must've done this before, back when you were human," Lucis says, though he's almost certain that's not true. He's long had doubts that Morgana ever _was_ human, but it's useful to buy into the fantasy, especially when it gets those big eyes gazing trustingly at him, Morgana offering himself up to anything Lucis may desire.

He traces a light touch over Morgana's cheek, then kisses him, lingering, until Morgana's breathlessly gasping into his mouth, clinging to Lucis with fingers that still end in too-sharp nails.

"More?" Lucis asks, pulling back just far enough that his every word brushes his lips fleetingly against Morgana's.

"Mmnnn," Morgana says, obviously unaware what 'more' is. It's _adorable._

Lucis cards fingers through his messy hair, Morgana leaning into the caress and purring.

-

He spreads Morgana's pale human thighs on the lush bed of the room that's part of the current Palace they're invading. He's gentle, more than he likes, but that's part of the game here. Lucis presses a tender kiss to the crease of Morgana's thigh, then pushes them wider apart. 

" _Lucis!_ " Morgana yelps, when Lucis moves _between_ them, licking Morgana open with a warm wet tongue.

Morgana's moaning insensibly when Lucis draws back with a grin. His thighs shift even further apart, inviting, and Lucis has never been one to turn down such an appetizing invitation.

" _Relax,_ " he orders, like they're in battle, and Morgana goes immediately boneless, unprotesting as Lucis presses into him in one long stroke that has Morgana mewling gorgeously, clawing at the bedsheets and pushing back into it like he can't get enough.

Morgana's whimpering his name like a prayer, little hitching breaths as Lucis fucks him slowly, too much sensation in a body that's still mostly unfamiliar to him.

"Say you're mine, Morgana," Lucis whispers into his ear when Morgana's obviously close, holding him on the edge of unimitable pleasure.

" _Yes,_ " Morgana groans, then—" _please._ "

Lucis slides a hand over Morgana's cock, feeling him shudder, hips bucking as it overwhelms him. He keeps rocking into him even as Morgana shakes with the aftershocks, little ripples that make him tense and tighten pleasantly around Lucis, and that's perfect, Lucis thinks, this has all worked out _so_ well.

-

"Holy shit, Morgana!" Ryuji yells the next time they all enter the Metaverse together. "You're human!"

"I _said_ I was!" Morgana snarks back, tossing his head haughtily.

Lucis smiles a private smile, thinking about spreading Morgana open again, sinking his hands into Morgana's hair and making him _scream._ He'll push just a little bit further each time, show Morgana that pain is just as good as pleasure, for certain measures of things.

"You had something to do with this, didn't you?" Ann asks smiling, bumping her shoulder against his. 

_Oh,_ if only she knew. "That's a secret," Lucis answers with a wink.


	4. Phase IV: Body and Mind

"How do you like your human form?" Lucis asks, softly kissing the outside curve of Morgana's ear, making him shiver. Lucis smiles. "And your human— _desires_."

"I—" Morgana says, unsure. Lucis _scares_ him, ever since they returned from the Metaverse that first night and he'd seen the red on Lucis' hands for what it actually was—blood of all the people Lucis had _killed,_ in the real world. 

_Does Lucis have a palace?_ Morgana wonders, then feels traitorous for doing so. _What does Lucis' world look like?_

"Yes," Morgana says.

Lucis smiles. That's the right answer.

-

Morgana notices things as a human he never did as a cat. 

He'd thought it was just the way Lucis _was,_ saying little and letting others push him around, dictate his actions, but he now realizes Lucis hides a predator's teeth under a lamb's skin, waiting for just the right moment to strike. He'd seen it in the castle with Kamoshida, but he'd had a cat's instincts then, had thought it was a measure of Lucis' _skill,_ not his ruthlessness.

Morgana knows better now, but it's far too late. 

He touches fingers to the bruises Lucis had left on his throat, blunt _human_ teethmarks, but Morgana knows if he were to betray Lucis to his friends, the retribution would be swift and brutal—he'd never even see it coming.

-

(Morgana wonders—in Lucis' palace, is his shadow even _human?_ )

-

"How does it feel, wearing other people's hearts?" Morgana had asked Lucis once, curious, tail flicking back and forth as he waited for Lucis' carefully measured answer.

"Not so different from wearing my own," Lucis answered, tapping Morgana lightly on the nose.

He'd gotten distracted, trying to bat Lucis' fingers away while Lucis kept them just out of reach, tapping them against Morgana's nose when he was least expecting it, and Morgana had made so much racket yowling that Lucis was a dirty cheater that Sojiro had come up to see what the commotion was.

Morgana realizes now it hadn't been a _lie,_ exactly, but that he hadn't understood the truth—

Lucis _has_ no heart, he has no idea how it feels.

-

"You'll never betray me, will you, Morgana?" Lucis asks him, gently petting Morgana's hair like he'd pet Morgana's fur when he'd still been a cat. 

Morgana is curled in his lap, reading one of Lucis' schoolbooks, and he very carefully doesn't tense any part of his body when he answers. "Of course not. I love you, Lucis."

Lucis smiles, a sweet expression, but Morgana sees the monster beneath, lurking.

"That's right," Lucis says with a sigh, taking the book out of Morgana's hands to set it on the table. "You owe me _everything,_ don't you?"

Morgana lets himself melt into the kiss, the way Lucis knows just how to pet his _human_ body to make him purr in his _human_ voice, and he wonders if one day, _his_ hands in the Metaverse will be just as red.


End file.
